Your Right to Know

Ohio ethics laws for public officials and lobbyists have not seen a serious update in more than
17 years, but Senate President Tom Niehaus wants to change that before his legislative career
finishes at the end of December.

The New Richmond Republican said he plans to roll out an ethics bill within the next few weeks,
with hopes of seeing it move during the post-election lame-duck session. He said he was not ready
to publicly discuss details but said disclosure and transparency would be the major themes.

“It’s been quite awhile since we looked at ethics reform,” said Niehaus, who is term-limited at
the end of the year. “It’s about transparency to the public and certainty for members of the
legislature and people in public office.”

The last significant update to Ohio ethics laws came in 1994, in the wake of the “pancaking”
scandal in which lobbyists were paying honorariums to current and former state lawmakers for
attending dinners and receptions.

The ethics law banned honorariums and created the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee. The law
also set a number of the current limits and lobbying laws, such as the requirement that gifts of
more than $25 be reported, and banned lawmakers from accepting any gift from a lobbyist of more
than $75.

Since then, there has been some tinkering but no significant ethics-law upgrades. Meanwhile,
some have learned ways around the system, such as dividing expenses among several lobbyists or
clients to avoid hitting legal gift and meal limits.

“Certainly, over that many years there has been an opportunity to see things that could be done
better to improve transparency and disclosure and identify conflicts of interests,” said Tony
Bledsoe, the state legislative inspector general.

Niehaus said he has worked with Bledsoe to come up with ideas for the bill. He also expects it
to address some more technical issues, such as concerns that it is too difficult for lawmakers to
amend financial-disclosure forms.

“If you file your financial-disclosure form and within some reasonable period of time you find
out you made a mistake, go back and change it and disclose that you’re amending that form,” he
said. “You fix it but let people know.”

Bledsoe noted that some thresholds for reporting have not been updated in years. For example, he
said, the $1,000 limit on when a lawmaker must disclose an investment was set in 1974. The question
now, he said, is whether $1,000 still translates into a potential conflict of interest.

“We have to look at all the statutes from the perspective of what was the underlying purpose,
what harm was intended to be prevented, and are these statutes meeting those goals?” he said.

Niehaus said he hopes to get bipartisan support for the plan.

Senate Minority Leader Eric Kearney, D-Cincinnati, said his staff is working with the majority
staff on some parts of the bill.

“If we’re able to work through the points, then I think we will have a bipartisan bill,” he
said. “I agree with President Niehaus that there needs to be a modernization of ethics laws in the
state.”

Technology is available to make reporting and transparency easier, Kearney said.